


Unimaginable Light

by thattrainssailed



Series: Words Hung Above, But Never Would Form [5]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Author misses Magnus' s1 outfits, Colours, Heavy-handed metaphor, M/M, Magnus Bane is beautiful, Season 1, Smitten Alec Lightwood, bring them BACK
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 09:03:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15239991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thattrainssailed/pseuds/thattrainssailed
Summary: Alec awakes on the couch, groggy and with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The loft is bathed in the early morning sun, everything glinting with yellow calmness, and in the middle of it all is Magnus, golden and so, so beautiful. He’s still in his clothes from the night previous, the delicate pale gold on his shirt crumpled, his hair mussed from his own hand. Specks of glitter shimmer low on his cheeks. For a moment, Alec is convinced that the light caressing the man’s skin is coming from his very body, glow beaming from the spaces between his bones to illuminate the entire universe around him. A golden epicentre of their galaxy, standing a few feet from Alec. A sun watched by an obsidian gap between planets.





	Unimaginable Light

The first time Alec meets Magnus, the only thing that he can think is “silver”.

It isn’t grey. That much is immediately apparent. Alec is used to grey - it stands alongside stark white as the unofficial colours of the Institute, has leaked from the walls of the building into Alec’s very existence. Grey is familiar. Grey is a given. It’s the faded shirts he always decides to wear  _ one more time _ before throwing them out. It’s colour of the city around him as Alec stalks the streets on yet another patrol, miles of cement providing the perfect cover for any creature hoping the evade him. It’s the colour inside his head when he catches Jace flirting with a girl, when his mother looks at him, when things fall apart and the entire Institute watches him with judgmental eyes for the days following.

Grey is Alec.

Magnus isn’t that colour. The hue is adjacent, but the reflection could not be more opposite. Alternating sets of three stripes mark out a metallic pattern on the man’s blazer, accented by a shimmering pigment smudged all around his lids. Alec doesn’t understand the principle, but it’s certainly beautiful. Magnus is dressed for a rave, and yet the silver he wears is just as appropriate for the battle that has commenced. There’s a simmering power in beauty surrounded by violence. As Alec watches Magnus finish off the Circle member, he thinks that the rest of them are the navy at the depths of Magnus’ outfit, outshone by the mesmerising silver of Magnus. And beneath them all, Alec is grey shadow, not even part of the spectrum. An afterthought trailing behind magnificent colour.

Magnus shines, and Alec can only watch.

*

The next time they meet, Alec is struck by blue. This time, the colour isn’t draped over Magnus’ body; instead, it’s pouring from him, a river from the lines of his palms, flowing into the body laid out on the couch. The entire loft is a luminous ocean, and Magnus is an anchor securing their ship as it’s thrashed by cruel, icy waves. He is buffeted by the force, but remains in control. For a moment, Alec is transfixed in the door, watching the blue wax and wane beneath Magnus’ fingertips, when suddenly it arches and Alec realises that it’s not the magic peaking. It’s Magnus falling. Drowning.

Alec moves on instinct. He reaches the warlock before he can stumble too far back. As they settle back up he finds himself watching the blue light that shines against the brown of Magnus’ skin. He’s clearly exhausted, barely staying conscious, but yet ethereal.

He asks for Alec’s strength, and when Alec closes his eyes to comply, he sees indigo fire.

*

The blue fades soon after, and the evening starts to blur together as everyone fusses around Luke, helps to move him, exchanges stories of what happened. It’s not until Alec stands up from cleaning the blood off Magnus’ couch that he becomes aware of the change in hue. No longer bathed in cobalt, the man’s appearance can be appreciated in all its beauty. His shirt is thin and see-through, made barely decent only by the twisting pattern of pale gold covering it. Indeed, his entire being seems to be made of precious metal: blonde streaks in his hair match his outfit with a perfection that could only be achieved through magic, the caramel colour of his skin a vein of priceless gold in a city that appears bleak in comparison. When Alec approaches to accept his drink, he sees the tiniest flecks of gold glitter beneath Magnus’ lower eyelashes.

It’s almost a relief when Magnus turns away. Alec is certain the man’s molten beauty could scorch him. He would not complain.

The colour is still there in the morning. Alec awakes on the couch, groggy and with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The loft is bathed in the early morning sun, everything glinting with yellow calmness, and in the middle of it all is Magnus, golden and so, so beautiful. He’s still in his clothes from the night previous, the delicate pale gold on his shirt crumpled, his hair mussed from his own hand. Specks of glitter shimmer low on his cheeks. For a moment, Alec is convinced that the light caressing the man’s skin is coming from his very body, glow beaming from the spaces between his bones to illuminate the entire universe around him. A golden epicentre of their galaxy, standing a few feet from Alec. A sun watched by an obsidian gap between planets.

Alec has to run. He’s far too close to Magnus’ mesmerising gravity.

*

After that, Alec tries to ignore the shades that come with Magnus, even as the warlock visits the Institute a week later. Observations bubble in the back of his mind. Turquoise. A thick coat framing a matching shirt with ruffles that on anyone else would be ridiculous, but which Magnus wears with elegance. The vivid colour stands out against the white of the Institute, and Alec feels himself falling in, but he must resist.

He tries not to memorise the exact shade of cerulean around Magnus’ eyes when they come face to face.

He tries to forget the contrast between that pigment and the bloodshot red surrounding Magnus’ irises when Alec speaks of his engagement.

He’s wearing turquoise again when Alec comes to him for help. A subtle defiance. A statement on remaining unchanged. He says yes, and Alec spends that night in restless, teal-edged sleep.

*

The dress code for Isabelle’s trial is traditional blacks and navies, so it’s no surprise when Magnus arrives in a magenta tie. The sight of him aches - oh, how it aches - but it evokes something else in Alec, too. A surge of affection that leaves him breathless. Because it’s so in-character. Trust Magnus to wage a silent war through colour, to remind the Clave of downworld rebellion with nothing but a piece of purple cloth.

The warlock will participate in their game, but god help the shadowhunters if they forget that Magnus has a galaxy in his veins.

He moves through hues as he argues. Intensity not in anger, but in conviction. A deep plum for his faith. Periwinkle for his dignity; lavender for compassion; shocking fuchsia as he cuts down the Clave at every point of contact. He paces about the stand, moving through the spectrum with expert precision, evoking shade after shade of pigment with which to pen his contention. As he speaks, his lips slowly turn a light rose from their activity, the colour intensified by proximity to the bright pink of his tie, and Alec forces himself not to be distracted by Magnus’ mouth. He’s only partially successful, betrayed by the blush on his cheeks.

When Lydia withdraws her charges, the room sparks with lavender happiness. As they all celebrate, Alec’s gaze meets Magnus, and something passes between them. By the time Magnus looks away, Alec is in a lilac haze.

*

When he calls for Alec the day before the wedding, Magnus is blue again. A midnight suit jacket with sapphire necklaces; only this time, there’s no power. There’s something thrumming beneath the surface, but it isn’t might. It’s… desperation. Helplessness dressed up the hue of magic to cover its anxiety. But the pigment is just wrong, just too dark, just too close to something deeper than blue. It surrounds Magnus and creeps onto Alec’s skin. As the warlock gestures, speaks, breathes, the colour surrounds Alec and almost consumes him. Ultramarine makes it into his throat but not quite to his lungs before Alec exhales and returns it to its master.

Because this is the exact reason why Alec has to run.

Magnus is a multiplicity of colours. In this moment he is blue, but the same never stays for long. He can dip into whatever he likes, can bathe himself in silver and gold and plum be nothing short of glory incarnate. Magnus is everything in the spectrum. He’s light itself, the very creator of colour.

Alec is shadow. Static. A gap in wavelengths.

He walks away and tells himself that void cannot sustain radiance.

*

The Institute is more vibrant than Alec has ever seen it. The base of the room is a familiar swatch of white, but everything on it is rich with colour, a seldom-used pallette suddenly thrown onto paper and called art.

Alec stands at the altar and watches as the modest crowd of people in the chapel spreads out amongst the seating. His mother networks in platinum, an elegant fabric reminiscent of battle armour. It’s almost laughably poignant. At her side is Alec’s father, wearing a charcoal suit that serves as a dull reflection of his wife. Sophisticated and plain. The perfect delegate of the Clave. Hodge is a similar image in a chestnut jacket. Nearby, Clary is dressed in emerald and speaks to a woman in navy. The hues of the guests trend earthy and subtle, but still there’s a vividness to the room. The stained glass windows that cover the walls project a vibrant, multicoloured tint onto the face of everyone who enters like tiny beacons of light.

A hundred carefully cut reminders of colour.

Alec takes a deep breath. He purses his lips and fiddles with his sleeves. White is the traditional colour of shadowhunter grooms and it’s felt wrong against Alec’s skin from the moment he shrugged on his jacket. He’s accepted that he’s nothing but blackness, a void from which nothing can shine; to then be put into ivory, unblemished and stainless, is surely blasphemy. He’s a mockery of a canvas.

The Silent Brother’s voice booms suddenly in Alec’s head, the entire room jumping alongside him. The ceremony is beginning. He rolls his shoulders and stands straight at the front of the room.

He doesn’t think about colour as Izzy walks down the aisle in stunning gold.

He doesn’t think about it when Lydia reaches him, her dress a shining cream.

He doesn’t think about it as the glinting silver stele ghosts his wrist.

A door slams.

And then there’s Magnus.

For all the colour in the room in that moment, from the spectrum of fabrics to the glow of the stained glass, for once Magnus wears none of it. He’s in all black, ebony from his shoulders to his feet, his dark hair spiked, mouth set firmly, void of all pigment. He’s space with no galaxy in sight, the aftermath of a star gone supernova. And yet there’s a light to him.

Magnus is light, and suddenly Alec is a prism.

As he strides down the aisle, he pays no mind to the colours that he passes. All he sees is the midnight of Magnus waiting for him.

When he kisses him, he tastes ultraviolet.

**Author's Note:**

> *banging pots and pans together* WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!
> 
> If you want more incoherent garbage, I'm over on [tumblr](https://thattrainssailed.tumblr.com/).


End file.
